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The saloons and the parasitical classes, male and female, seemed to flourish and to play their usual prominent part in the life of such places. The doings of notorious women whose sobriquets seemed household words, the lavish expenditures of certain men upon them, the presents of diamonds they received, with the amount paid for them, constituted a large part of the general talk.
'Young ruffians! said Mark, as if the sobriquets were wholly unknown to the masters' room. 'Ah, they do though; and the other day, when my monitor opened the desk in the morning, there was a great impident kitten staring me in the face. He'd put it in there himself, I dare say, to annoy me.
When they spoke of him they referred to him as "the ragamuffin from Madrid" or simply, "ragamuffin." He answered to whatever names and sobriquets they gave him. At first the most hateful of all these men, to Manuel, was the head baker, who ordered him about in a despotic manner and grew angry if things weren't done in a trice.
They were dressed like the previous comer, who, as they passed through the open door, exchanged greetings with each in antique phraseology, bestowing at the same time some familiar nickname. Flash-in-the-Pan, Spitter-of-Frogs, Malmsey Butt, Latheyard-Will, and Mark-the-Pinker, were the few sobriquets the broker remembered.
The third time of trying, she acquitted herself so well that her teacher praised her; and when she bade him good morning, with a comic little courtesy, he smiled good-naturedly, as he said, "Ah, Malizietta!" "I knew I should make Signor Pimentero sprinkle some pepper," exclaimed she, laughing, as she saw him walk away. "You are too fond of sobriquets," said Rosa.
Simpson nicknamed his fastidious opponent "Prince Hal" and pointed to his silk stockings as an evidence of aristocracy. Young Victor Murdock, then a cub reporter, promptly wrote a story to the effect that Simpson himself wore no socks at all. "Sockless Jerry," "Sockless Simpson," and then "Sockless Socrates" were sobriquets then and thereafter applied to the stalwart Populist.
Buff, her Serene Highness, Sua Serenita, as Janet made it, became the sobriquets for Aunt Ellen, and were in continual danger of oozing out publicly. Indeed the younger population at Kencroft probably soon became aware of them, for on the next half-holiday Jock crept in with unmistakable tokens of combat about him, and on interrogation confessed, "It was Johnnie, mother.
He was known in the Gulch as the Reverend Elias B. Hopkins, but it was generally understood that the title was an honorary one, extorted by his many eminent qualities, and not borne out by any legal claim which he could adduce. "The Parson" was another of his sobriquets, which was sufficiently distinctive in a land where the flock was scattered and the shepherds few.
Mercedes was standing at the window, gazing out upon the sea. Behind her stood a man in the uniform of a Zouave. Small, brown and thin, he looked like the type of what a Zouave is generally thought to be. What the Zouave's name was no one exactly knew. He had many sobriquets, the most popular of which was "Sergeant Coucou," so that after a while he was never called otherwise.
We do not think the sobriquets of this country very happy, in general, but shall quarrel less with this, than with the phrase of "commercial emporium," which is much as if one should say "a townish town." Roswell Gardiner has never wavered in his faith, from the time when his feelings were awakened by the just view of his own insignificance, as compared to the power of God!
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